On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 04:43:16PM +1100, Les Bell wrote:

Frank Cox theatre@sasktel.net wrote:

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I have never understood this. If I have a good, strong password that nobody knows, how is changing it to another one an improvement over what I already have? <<

Correct. Modern thinking is to teach people how to create a good, strong password and then stick with it for a longer period than has traditionally been the case. A rainbow tables attack against a captured hash can be done in just a few seconds, so unless you're prepared to change your password every few seconds, it's a futile gesture.

Because most sets of rainbow tables cover all combinations of upper/lower case alpha, numeric and punctuation symbols, a strong password should contain at least one control character, a composed character (using the Alt+numpad technique) or some other non-printable character outside the rainbow tables set. Or use two-factor authentication (RSA SecurID or similar tokens, certificates, etc.).

Thinking about the above made me ask the following question:

Is it possible to setup Centos to ask for a change of password every month?

Thanks

Alfredo The Sauce